Gatchaman R1: Past the Mission
by Savage Redhead
Summary: The Science Ninja Team is dead, and the world mourns. But in the northern mountains, a lone woman discovers that the fallen heroes might not be lost forever after all.
1. Default Chapter

PAST THE MISSION

_Emby Quinn (embyquinn@subreality.com)_

**_Author's Note:_**This story takes place at the end of Gatchaman F #48, and I mean RIGHT at the end, before the credits even start rolling. The Ninja and the universe in which they live are not mine, I just snuck a redhead in when I thought nobody was looking. This is a fan story written by a fan for the enjoyment of herself and (hopefully) those who read it. Money? What's that?--Emby Quinn  
  


Part 1

  
  
_Hey, they found a body  
Not sure it was his  
Still they're using his name  
And she gave them shelter  
Somewhere I know she knows  
Something only she knows  
  
_--Tori Amos  
  
"...threat to Earth has ended with the destruction of the mysterious satellite. The sacrifice of the Science Ninja Team will never be forgotten..."  
  
She took another drink from the bottle of JD Black, wincing as the liquor burned its way down her throat and stoked the fire in her belly. Her vision was beginning to swim dangerously, but she didn't feel quite drunk enough to pry herself off her tatami-mat floor and stumble outside and off the edge of the nearest cliff.  
  
Not yet.   
  
A year and a half since she'd spoken to Ken. A bit more than that, really. Ever since that terrible fight they'd had over her refusal of Nambu's request for her to take up the position of Number G-2 in the Science Ninja Team.  
  
She'd contemplated it for the two long, lonely years between Joe's disappearance and presumed death and the reappearance of the Galactor Syndicate. She'd tried to picture herself in Joe's colors, in Joe's position, fulfilling the duties he would have done, taking up his life's mission for him...the way he'd asked her to on that last, terrible day.  
  
She couldn't do it. She knew it in her gut. She didn't have Joe's skills, she never would have meshed with the team, she would have been more a liability than an asset. And she simply, truthfully, hadn't had the heart to step into her dead lover's position. Nambu had understood that. And accepted it.  
  
Ken hadn't. Couldn't. Refused to even consider it. When cajoling, lecturing, and abject pleading hadn't swayed her, he summarily banished her from his presence, his life, with four words that had finished killing what was left of her heart after the loss of Joe:  
  
"I have no sister."  
  
She'd taken her half of the inheritance, sold her loft apartment and all the carefully-acquired furnishings, and moved away from Utoland City within days of Ken's disowning her. In the mountains she'd found a small, long-untended traditional house which would be plenty big enough for her all alone. She spent the first few months painstakingly restoring the dilapidated dwelling--repainting the walls inside and out, replacing the worn mats, restoring the rice-paper frames, stripping the wooden beams and staining them a dark honey tone, reinforcing the sagging structure until it was at last habitable again. She wired the house herself using reference books and sheer determination; she purchased a wind- and solar-powered generator from a company in France. Bit by bit she collected furniture, slightly distressed antiques and clever reproductions, anything that fit the style of the house or her personal taste.  
  
The roof leaked and had to be repaired every spring; the rooms were impossible to keep heated in the winter; the kitchen was almost unbearably hot in the summer; the nearest human habitation was several hours' walk or a half-hour drive away on treacherous mountain roads. Still, it was home.  
  
Sometimes she considered rejoining civilization--moving to the nearest town, finding an apartment, getting a job, finding a man to fall in love with, getting married, starting a family. It all seemed like too much trouble to go to. The only friends she'd ever had no longer spoke to her. The only man she ever loved...  
  
She hadn't completely cut herself off from the outside world. She had a short-wave radio, a stereo and a television with a satellite dish to keep her informed. She had heard about the miraculous reappearance of Condor Joe, back from the dead. That was when she was still corresponding with Jun. She knew all about the circumstances of Joe's return--as much as Jun could tell her, of course--though the details of his survival were never clear. Shortly after that, the letters from Jun stopped. She didn't try to re-establish contact. Still, Joe could have found out easily where she was. Jun had known. Joe could have come to her. If he'd wanted to.   
  
She still didn't understand why he hadn't. She wasn't flattering herself, but she wasn't one to delude herself with misguided modesty either. She knew Joe had loved her as deeply as she had loved him. Something had to have kept him away from her. Ken, possibly? Another woman (though he'd never been seen with one that she knew of)? Something that had happened to him in his two-year absence? Those questions tortured her during many a long, lonely night alone, lying sleepless in the dark, with an aching Joe-shaped emptiness in the bed beside her, painful enough to be physically felt, like a leaden spike driven through her heart.  
  
She couldn't go back to Utoland City, even while the team members still were there. She had been banished from Ken's life. He was the one who'd made that choice, and he should have been the one to reopen the channels of communication.  
  
He never did. Had he really hated her so much?  
  
Nambu had written sporadically--he was, by his own admission, a lousy pen-pal, putting off responding to a letter for days, sometimes weeks, before remembering to tap out a few hastily-written lines on a keyboard and mailing the printout. And that was before President Anderson's assassination; after assuming directorship of the ISO, Nambu hadn't even had time for that.  
  
She learned of Nambu's assassination from the news channel. She'd gone to the cemetery, returning to Utoland City for the first time in over a year. She'd intended to witness the funeral of her father's dearest friend--her godfather, her last true link to her past before the abduction--from a safe, unobserved distance. She watched her brother and his teammates as they laid bouquets of flowers on Nambu's grave, one by one. God, they had all looked so...lost, so devastated. Ken in particular seemed to be staggering under the crushing weight of grief and responsibility. Moreover, he looked...tired. No, he looked _sick_. Something was wrong with him, she realized with a gut-wrenching certainty. It wasn't just grief or sorrow, Ken was physically ill--he looked as bad as Joe had the day he'd shown up at her doorstep to say goodbye before going to Cross Karacolm to die. Her heart--the heart she'd thought long dead--woke up and cried out for the only family she had. She didn't know if Ken would welcome her or spit in her face, but she was going to have to make contact, let him know that, whatever had happened, whatever was going to happen, she'd be there for him. For all of them.  
  
But she'd never gotten the chance. Egobossler, Galactor's new leader, had appeared, mocking their grief, then destroyed Nambu's tomb. She watched it all from her vantage point on the hillside, not daring to interfere, not feeling she had the right. The team had charged off after the intruders, and she hadn't gotten another chance to contact them...  
  
...and now she never would.  
  
Miyae Washio tilted her head back and drained the bottle with one last huge gulp. Her head spun miserably, her temples throbbed, and she felt hot all over.   
  
Maybe--finally--she'd gotten drunk enough to kill herself.  
  
She rose unsteadily to her knees, stumbled to the door, and almost fell through the rice-paper panes in her drunkenness. She scrabbled at the shoji frame and slid it aside so hard it nearly jumped from its smooth wooden tracks. Barefoot, wild-haired, clad only in a halter top and faded jeans, she staggered out into the cold night, heading resolutely towards the jagged cliffs which lay beyond the path outside.  
  
She paused near the edge of the precipice and stood swaying, looking up at the cool radiance of the stars in the deep midnight sky. She sucked in deep breaths, her exhalations sending misty puffs into the chilly late October air. Then she closed her eyes and tilted her head back.  
  
She called to mind a memory of her brother--not as she'd last seen him, pale and drawn and haggard with grief and illness; not as he'd been when he last spoke to her, bitter and angry and accusing; but the way he'd looked when she laid eyes on him for the first time--alert, intelligent, _caring_, ready to open his heart and his arms and his life to a sister he'd never known existed, a stranger who'd been raised to kill him. She visualized every detail of Ken's face--the wide blue-sky eyes so much like her own, the sweep of dark-chocolate hair feathered across his brow, the broad devil-may-care grin. She pictured and held his face steady before her inner eyes.  
  
It seemed completely right to see Jun with Ken--her long black hair framing her heart-shaped face with its gentle green eyes and a mouth like a rosebud. And of course Jinpei would be there--he hadn't grown much, he was still completely recognizable, with the wild mouse-colored hair that never lay down flat, his dark, quick eyes, his toothy grin.  
  
She could even see Ryu there, just behind them, his protective bulk unmistakably sheltering those he loved most. Ryu had never been demonstrative, but he'd hardly been the buffoon everyone dismissed him as at first meeting.   
  
Only one figure was missing from her imagined reunion. She sought for a place to put him, and at last his likeness came to her--closer than the others, closer to her even than Ken, as he'd always been. The predatory eyes, the color of ice over blue steel, the shaggy caramel-colored hair, the expressive mouth always so ready to curl into a smirk, or harden into a snarl, or--rarely, so rarely--even to curve into an uncommonly gentle smile. Without willing it, she saw him give her that gentle smile, the one he saved for her alone, saw him reach out his hand as if he meant to take hers.  
  
_"Joe..."_ She breathed his name into the night air, drawing in one last slow breath before taking that final, fatal step forward. She wondered what sounds her body would make as it tumbled down the jagged face of the cliff before it struck the rocks below, and if her eyes would be closed or open when she landed.  
  
A rosy glow suffused her eyelids, and for a moment she wondered how long she'd been standing at the edge of suicide. _Sunrise already...?_ She stayed where she was, disoriented, certain that it couldn't possibly have been that long, surely no more than a few minutes, no matter how intoxicated she was.  
  
She forced her eyes open, the vision of those she loved still lingering in her mind. The sky above the mountains to the north was a palette of every color of fire, and as she watched it continued to spread and brighten--quicker than any rising sunlight.  
  
And in any case, the sun didn't rise from the _north_--  
  
Then she heard it. A wild, beautiful cry from far, far away that rang and resounded through the valleys and crevices of the surrounding mountains.  
  
_The Firebird--no, impossible, that can't be the voice of the Firebird--  
  
_ The _Hinotori_--the majestic Firebird--tore loose from the riot of radiance along the horizon and quickly filled the sky, spreading its fiery wings protectively across the scattered expanse of stars. It shone with a light that was bright and warm, yet somehow not hard to look at, its rainbow-plumage of flame constantly shifting, an incandescent prism with wings and a crested head and a sweet, triumphant call.  
  
The empty Jack Daniels bottle she still held slipped from Miya's nerveless fingers and landed unnoticed in the grass with a soft _thump_. It slid lazily off the edge and dropped off the cliff, smashing to bits halfway down and sprinkling the rocks below with shards of glass that reflected the radiance in the sky just as Miya's wide blue eyes mirrored the blazing spectacle in all its splendor.   
  
The beautiful vision arched, voiced its haunting cry once more, and swooped down towards the Earth. It seemed to be heading directly for the spot where Miya was standing--but she didn't move. She didn't have time to think of dodging, and she might not have even if she'd been given the chance. She stood her ground, ready to accept her fate.  
  
A blast of hot wind nearly threw her to the ground as the _Hinotori_ shot past above her. She kept her footing and turned sharply around in time to see the Firebird fly over her house and crest the hill on the other side--and suddenly plummet downwards. She heard a soft, hissing thunder of impact, saw a bright flash of golden-white light, then the darkness settled once more.  
  
Nothing ruins a good buzz faster than the unexpected appearance of a Firebird from the heavens. Stone cold sober as though she'd never touched alcohol in her life, Miya ran over the small hill, all thoughts of suicide forgotten, her flaming hair flying out behind her like a battle-flag. She tore past her house as fast as her long coltish legs would carry her. At the top of the hill, she froze, staring downward with incredulous eyes.  
  
The light from the house behind her spilled down the slope, illuminating a wide irregular patch of grass that had been scorched black. There was a faint tinge of smoke that wafted through the air, but no open fires remained in the uneven circle.  
  
Five figures lay scattered on the scorched earth, unmoving.  
  
"KEN!!!" Miya screamed and bolted down the hill. The scorched ground under her bare feet was still hot, but she didn't pause. She dropped to her knees beside the first body she came to, a young man with dark, dark hair, lying face down on the blackened grass. "Ke...Ken...?"  
  
He didn't move. Her hand, trembling, reached out to touch his shoulder--his bare shoulder. He was naked, as they all were. His skin was warm. She slid her fingertips up to his throat, where she quickly found a strong carotid pulse.   
  
Alive. _He was alive.  
  
_ She carefully turned him over. There wasn't a mark on his smooth skin. His eyes were shut, dark lashes stark against his cheeks. He looked as though he were smiling, just a little.  
  
"Ken?" He still didn't respond, but his breathing was deep and even. She checked his limbs, his ribcage, found nothing broken. She scooped her brother up in her arms as though he were a child and began carrying him back up the slope to her house. She settled him carefully on the tatami, covered him with a futon quilt, then swiftly gathered up as many coverings she could--tablecloths, blankets, sheets--and took them out so that the others would at least have something to keep the chill of the night off them until she could get them inside.  
  
Jinpei, then Jun, then--after only the slightest hesitation--Joe, who seemed somehow heavier than she'd remembered. He was taller than Ken, but he'd never been much heavier, but now she staggered under his weight and was out of breath by the time she got him inside. Ryu she had no hope of being able to pick up, so she was forced to bring out a futon mattress and drag him on it back to the house.  
  
Once they were all safely settled, Miya tried the short-wave radio to call for help. It was no good; radio reception had been erratic at best since the beginning of the crisis, and it might be hours before the interference decided to abate. Should she ride into town and try to find help? She didn't even know if anyone would be awake this late. Or this early, she amended, glancing at the clock on the far wall. For that matter, the residents might have fled to shelters in Orange City, near the foot of the mountain, when the crisis ensued. In any case, she couldn't simply leave them, not in this state, not knowing when they were going to wake up, so she fired up her small stove, put on water to boil and settled down to wait.  
  


  
* * * 

_"Ken. Z's destruction doesn't mean your work is finished. You can never die. You are all immortal, like the Phoenix."  
  
_ "_Hakase_...?"  
  
A cool hand brushed his forehead. Ken's eyes flew open, trying to focus. "Where...?"  
  
"Be still." Not Nambu's voice, but another. Another he knew well, although he hadn't heard it in almost two years.  
  
"Miyae--!" He tried to rise, but his sister held him down.   
  
"Don't get too ambitious. You've been out for hours. At the very least."  
  
"Galactor--Egobossler--Z--!!"  
  
"The satellite blew up." Miyae's image swam in his vision, but her voice and her tousle of red hair were unmistakable. "With you on it."  
  
"Blew up...I think I remember...I..." He tried to sit up again, and felt the roughness of the quilt against his skin. "I...my clothes...?!"  
  
"You didn't have any on when I found you."  
  
Ken raised up on one elbow, blinking and rubbing his eyes with his other hand. Finally his vision cleared. He could see the others--Jun to his left, Joe to his right, Jinpei and Ryu on Jun's other side--spaced out in the simply furnished traditional room. Miyae had to step carefully over the bodies to bring him a cup of plain hot tea. She put the drink beside him, and handed him something else. "You were holding this," she explained. "I didn't notice until after I'd gotten you all in here. You should see the patch of grass you burned outside when you landed."  
  
"Landed--?!" Ken blinked, then accepted what Miyae held out to him. The hard metal object fit neatly into his palm. He looked down, and smiled, unaware, sadly. "Nambu's pendant..."  
  
"I had no idea what it was. But you were clinging to it as though it were important."  
  
"It is...I think." Ken's voice was soft, almost reverent. "I think it's what saved us."  
  
Miyae obviously didn't understand--how could she?--but she nodded anyway, kneeling quietly beside him.  
  
Ken picked up the teacup and took a cautious sip. Simple tea had never tasted so good on his tongue. He swallowed, set it back down, and looked at his sister. "Miyae..."  
  
She met his gaze without speaking, her face giving nothing away.  
  
"Thank you for helping us."  
  
"I couldn't leave you out there." Her voice held no inflection, stating a simple, flat fact.  
  
"I've been meaning to contact you."  
  
"You didn't have a chance. I understand."  
  
Ken shook his head impatiently, determined to say what he'd wanted to say to his sister for months. He'd never found the time, or (truth be told) the courage, to seek her out. "Miyae...I shouldn't have turned against you the way I did, back when we lost Joe. If I'd known how things were going to turn out...it was a difficult time for all of us, and I shouldn't have been so harsh with you." He reached out and took her hand in his. It was cold, unresponsive, but he forged ahead. "I've had plenty of time to think about the situation, and I eventually realized that you didn't feel you were capable of taking Joe's position. When...when the Doctor was killed, I wanted more than anything to see you, to talk to you, to make things right between us, but I never got the chance to look for you before..." He took a deep and shuddering breath. "Anyway, I wanted you to know...I've never hated you, Miyae. You're my sister. I was angry, and lost, and confused, but that's no excuse for how I behaved."  
  
She waited, and when he didn't say anything else, she asked, "Is that supposed to be an apology?"  
  
Ken bridled, but he held his reaction in firm check. She had a right to be bitter after the way he'd treated her, no matter what his reasons were. "I certainly owe you more than an apology after the shameful way I acted towards you, but that's all I can offer you at the moment."  
  
Her seamless non-expression held for the space of two breaths, then slowly her face came alive, as it often did when she finally relaxed her guard. "You don't owe me any more apology than I owe you," she said softly. "I let you down when you needed me. You gave me so much, freely, without reservations, and the one time you asked me for anything I refused you, because I didn't have the nerve to do what I should have done. If I'd only accepted the position, that traitor wouldn't have almost killed you."  
  
"I had no right to demand that you do something you didn't feel right about. Besides, Joe came back to us, and I could have gotten in touch with you--Jun wrote you, I know, at least for a while--but...oh, dammit, Miyae, I was too proud to admit I was wrong. People say I have no faults, but that's a lie. I've got feet of clay all the way up to my ass."  
  
She smiled and folded her hand around his. "It doesn't matter now, anyway. We could sit here till next autumn going over 'shoulda'coulda'woulda' and it wouldn't change a thing that's happened."   
  
"Does that mean you accept my apology?"  
  
"That means I missed my baby brother, damn you." Miyae reached forward and gathered Ken into her arms. He hugged her back, tight--so far as he could recall, this was the first time she'd ever reached out for him first, ever, and his eyes stung with tears over that. That, and the years they'd lost. Wasted. For nothing.  
  
A low, guttural groan from behind Miyae made her start in Ken's arms. He let her go so she could turn and see to his second-in-command.  
  
She slid across the floor and sat on one hip as she bent over Joe tenderly, her fingertips barely brushing his cheek. His eyes snapped open, and he focused immediately on her face...and smiled. "Miya," he husked. "Hi there."  
  
"Hi. And welcome back." She gently smoothed the hair back from his brow. "How do you feel?"  
  
"Like I just woke up from a long, bad dream...what happened? Where are the others?"  
  
Like Ken had, he started to get up, and Miyae held him down, gently but meaningfully. "They're all here, they're all fine, but Ken's the only one besides you awake so far." She scooted back so the two men could see each other. "As for what happened, I can tell you my part, but rather than repeat myself five times I think I'll save the story till everyone's conscious. Want some tea?"  
  
"No. I need a drink."  
  
"I think I--I think all the alcohol's gone, but I'll see what I can come up with." Miyae rose smoothly to her feet and picked her way across the floor, slipping quietly into the hallway beyond the interior sliding door.  
  
Ken lifted his cup and took another sip. "You really should try the tea. It's great."  
  
"Thanks, I'll pass." Joe sat up, and noticed almost at once what Ken had already discovered. He lifted the quilt that covered him for visual confirmation, then looked at Ken with one quizzically arched brow.  
  
Ken smirked. "She said we were naked when she found us."  
  
"When she--?"  
  
Ken held up his hand. "I don't know any more than you do, really, Joe. I just came around myself."  
  
Joe's predatory eyes tracked towards the door through which Ken's sister had vanished. "Miya...so this is where she's been all this time."  
  
"Apparently so."  
  
"Strange that of all the places we should end up, it would be here...but I don't suppose it matters." Joe's icy grey eyes focused on Ken once more. "I see you two are talking again."   
  
"Yeah...under the circumstances, it seems sort of stupid to still be mad, especially after all that's happened."  
  
"Pity you didn't come to that brilliant conclusion sooner." Joe raised his hands and scrubbed them briskly over his face. Then he froze. Took his hands away. Looked down at his chest. Blinked. Twice.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
Joe looked up at Ken. "Tell me it wasn't my imagination that I got shot on the way up to that satellite."  
  
"Of course it wasn't--huh?" Ken noticed that the flesh of Joe's chest was smooth, unmarked. So was his back, as though he'd never been injured. "That laser pierced you right through...but there's not a mark on you now. Joe, I knew you were...special...but I never realized you healed so quickly."  
  
"I don't."  
  
"Then how--?!"  
  
"Either Miya's got one hell of a first-aid kit...or something...happened to us, after..."  
  
"You're in luck," Miyae announced as she reappeared in the doorway. "No alcohol, sorry, but I found something less likely to spill and a lot more useful."  
  
Both men fell silent, by some unacknowledged agreement keeping their conversation private.   
  
Miyae was carrying an armful of clothes. "These should fit you," she told Ken. "They're too big for me, and you don't have a butt to speak of anyway." She grinned as she tossed her brother a pair of battered black sweatpants and a white tank top. "And these are yours, I believe, Condor." She dropped a pair of faded jeans and a plain black T-shirt, carefully folded, on the quilt covering Joe's knees. "You never picked them up after I finished mending them."  
  
"I remember." Joe lifted the shirt, his tip-tilted eyes darting sideways to regard her as she knelt between them. "'Condor'. It's been too long since I've heard you call me that."  
  
She gave him a little half-smile. "Unfortunately, anything else I have in the house would swallow Jun and Jinpei alive--and there's nothing that would come close to covering Ryu--so I'm going to have to head into town and see if anything's open this early."  
  
"I'll come with you," Ken said, standing to pull the sweatpants up over his hips. They were a bit short in the leg, the rear was baggy and the waist was so tight the elastic threatened to roll down, but they covered the important bits and at the moment that was the best he could hope for. "I need to contact Saburo, let the base know our status--"  
  
"Forget it, Ken." Joe zipped up his old jeans and slipped the T-shirt over his muscular chest. 'I can call Kamo from town."  
  
"But--"  
  
Joe arched an eyebrow. "You need to be here when Jun wakes up. The others, too." He narrowed his eyes meaningfully at Ken: _And your sister and I have some issues to discuss.  
  
_ The light dawned, and Ken nodded. "You're right." Reluctantly he sat back down on the quilting, crossing his long legs underneath him.  
  
"Good boy." Joe gave Ken a pat on the head in passing, dodging the answering swat with a grin. "Come on, Red, let's go shopping."  
  


  
* * * 

Joe had assumed that he'd be riding the buddy seat on Miya's motorcycle; he hadn't expected the four-wheel-drive sitting in front of the carefully-restored house. "A Land Rover," he noted, with a hint of approval. "Must've set you back a bundle."  
  
"I wanted something that wasn't going to strand me at roadside during a snowstorm." Miya paused in front of the Rover and dangled the keys. "Want to do the honors? It's not quite the G-2, but..."  
  
Joe smirked at her. Even after three years apart, she knew without need of acknowledgment when he needed to take control of a situation, even if it was only by getting behind the wheel of a vehicle. He plucked the keys from her fingers and headed for the driver's side.  
  
The light of dawn--real dawn, this time--began spreading slowly up from the eastern horizon. Under Joe's hands--they hadn't lost their skill, despite the long time it had been since he'd driven anything approaching a normal car--the Land Rover skimmed the winding mountain road at a comfortable speed.  
  
Joe had forgotten how much he'd missed driving--really driving, not during a battle, not to form the Spartan, not for any other purpose than to get from Point A to Point B in the most expedient manner possible. The Land Rover wasn't his vehicle of choice--it handled like a tank--but it woke up part of the careless young man he'd once been, Joe Asakura the private racer, the man who could out-drive any other competitor on the track, in the field or anywhere else. Had it really been three years since he'd been out on the circuit? Yes, by God, it had, and barely three at that.  
  
He would be twenty-three two weeks from today, and he felt a hundred years old. He wondered if Ken felt the same way, after all they'd been through. They had almost seemed to switch roles in the last year or so; Joe's brushes with death, the time he'd spent with Dr. Rafael, had mellowed his burning rages, tempered his volatile nature. Ken, on the other hand, had grown more impulsive than ever, even antagonistic, prone to violent fits of temper. Somewhere along the way, they'd both lost themselves.  
  
Jun had been the only real stability in either of their lives. She'd matured into a remarkable woman, as Joe had always known she would. When he had been submerged in self-loathing, hating himself for being what he'd always despised--a cyborg, a freak--Jun had convinced him that he was still human, with human feelings, human needs. And when Ken was consumed with vengeance--as Joe himself once had been--it was Jun who had brought their leader back to his senses, with patient words, and finally with a good dressing-down just when he needed it. Jun had finally seemed ready to take that definitive step with the man she'd always loved...and Ken, at long last, had finally begun to acknowledge what had always existed between the two of them.  
  
Jinpei was what, now--fourteen? No, fifteen. He was still damned small for his age, but it had taken Ken long enough to grow to _his _full height, so there was still hope for the kid. Ryu, the "middle child" in age of all of them, was as adjusted to the changes in their lives as any of them were. He'd taken Nambu's death particularly hard--Ryu worshiped his family, Nambu, and Ken, more or less in that order--but he still wouldn't talk about it, not really. Or he wouldn't before...  
  
Before.  
  
Damn, what the hell _had_ happened on that satellite? Joe couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed, something fundamental, something incredibly important, something he should be noticing, but wasn't, because frankly he was feeling too good to bother with it--  
  
Unless that was it.  
  
For the first time in entirely too long, Joe felt _good_, right down to his bones. The crushing weight of depression that had hung over him since his cybernetically-enhanced "rebirth", the pall that had cloaked his weary soul like a foreshadowing of impending doom, was gone. He no longer feared his own death, nor anticipated it as the sole release from his prolonged suffering. He no longer felt as though he'd outlived his usefulness, that his soul had perished at Cross Karacolm and his body was only a breathing, hollow, echoing shell that didn't have enough sense to lie down and die.  
  
Was it because they had all survived certain death (again)? Was it because he was with Miya again--hardly his first love, far from his only love, but possibly his greatest love, and certainly the one woman who'd never had the ill grace to die on him? Or was it because he was behind the wheel of a car again--a Land Rover, to be sure, which steered like a cow and had the pick-up of a somnambulistic snail, but a bona fide, genuine _road vehicle_, rather than a wheeled instrument of destruction?  
  
"Take the next right from here." It was the first time Miya had spoken since they'd started. Joe took the turnoff without perceptibly slowing down. The headlights illuminated a signpost that read MONTANVILLE--15 in a flash of blue on white as they passed it.  
  
"Sounds like a hip-hop-happening place," Joe commented. It was a lame remark, and he knew it, but he was beginning to hate the silence between them.  
  
"It's got five hundred people, a post office, a cafe' and a clothing shop," she said. "Frankly I've seen Utoland City buses with more signs of modern civilization."  
  
"That's a scary thought." Joe pondered his next comment, steeled himself for her reaction and forged ahead. "So you've been out here in Nowhereland all this time."  
  
"It wasn't a big secret. Jun knew." Implying that he could have found her if he'd wanted to.  
  
Joe glared fixedly at the road ahead as though it had personally offended him. He _had_ wanted to come to her, and she had the right to know why he hadn't, but he wasn't ready to tell her. First he had to know where things stood between them. "You could have come back," he countered.  
  
Miya stole a glance at his rugged profile, limned by the pre-dawn radiance and the green-white nimbus of the dashboard light. "Not after what happened with Ken. He banished me, remember?"  
  
"I wasn't there, but I heard about it. You know perfectly well that even if your brother couldn't get his ass off his shoulders, the rest of us would have gladly helped you shove it back down where it belongs. He would have forgiven you, just as he's forgiven you now. There was something else keeping you away." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her wince. "Another man?"  
  
"Don't be stupid."  
  
"Another woman?"  
  
"Dammit, Joe--" Miya stamped her foot on the floorwell. "It was mostly the thought of what Ken would do or say, yes. But...yes, there was something else. I was _ashamed_ to come back."  
  
"Ashamed? Because you wouldn't join the team?"  
  
"I broke the promise I made to you. I tried to train with them--I _did_. But it wasn't working, and I knew it as well as Nambu did. Ken accused me of not trying hard enough...maybe he was right. It's true that my heart wasn't in it."  
  
Joe navigated an S-curve without even slowing down. The Land Rover did, indeed, steer like a wounded wildebeest, but he managed to keep the vehicle on the road. "I missed you," he said. "You must have known that I was alive. It's been over a year since the team became active again, and I never heard anything from you."  
  
"I didn't hear from you, either. I thought if you really wanted to find me, you would come looking for me. I waited." She directed her gaze straight ahead at the lightening sky before them. "I kept telling myself that you probably felt the same way Ken did, and wanted nothing to do with me because of my refusal to join the team. Or that you'd forgotten me, that you'd found someone else. "  
  
_Not for lack of trying,_ Joe thought. Not that he'd made any real effort to fill the void in his life. There hadn't seemed to be much point, really--not when he knew was living every minute of every day on borrowed time. "So for the past year and a half we've both been hanging fire, waiting for each other to show up on the doorstep?"  
  
"It looks that way, doesn't it?" She shook her head. "I didn't intend it to be that way."  
  
"I guess neither of us did."  
  
"Aa." She turned in the seat to face him. "Joe, there's never been anyone else for me. There never _could_ be, if there's any chance we could still be together."  
  
_This is it._ Joe steeled himself for what he had to tell her. "Miya..."  
  
"I know I screwed up royally by leaving Ken when he needed me. I screwed up worse by not coming back when I knew you were alive. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly, but I was a coward, and I was too damned proud to take the chance of being told 'no'."  
  
Joe's hands tightened on the wheel. "Miya--"  
  
"It's nothing you have to decide right now. You've been through hell and I'm not going to force you into a choice you might regret later." She took a breath. "I just want you to know that nothing's changed for me, and if you _should_ want me again...I'll be here."  
  
"_Kuso!_" Joe spun the steering wheel and drove off the road, slamming the brakes with such violence he almost drove his foot through the floorboard. The Land Rover skidded to a stop in a burst of pebbles and dust.  
  
"_Ittai nanda yo_?!" Miya snapped, pushing herself away from the dashboard. "You almost put me through the windshield, you reckless bastard!"  
  
Joe switched off the engine and turned to face her. "Miya--_shut up_ and listen to me." _Why do Washios always talk so damned much?_ His hands flashed out and grabbed Miya by the upper arms in a grip that was almost painful. He locked eyes with her and spoke in a low, fierce monotone. "I should have died at Cross Karacolm," he said. "I didn't because a man named Dr. Rafael saved me. He had to build new parts for the ones that were destroyed. I'm a cyborg, Miya. I'm--I'm not human anymore."  
  
Miya blinked. "Joe..." she breathed.  
  
He continued relentlessly. "I wasn't supposed to live this long. I was rescued--I was _built_ for one reason only--to destroy Sosai X. There was a bomb inside me set to detonate when I came into contact with him, but it didn't work. I didn't explode. After we defeated X, I ended up in a hospital flat on my back, half alive and mostly dead because my power was almost gone.   
  
"What did I have to offer you then? I was a freak, a dead man walking, a corpse with a malfunctioning bomb for a heart. I couldn't offer you any kind of a normal relationship. It was only when we learned that Galactor wasn't finished, that a part of X calling itself Z had returned to regroup them, that I was able to find the will to go on. I fully expected to die, and I didn't care, so long as I took the Syndicate down with me--but I wasn't expecting us _all_ to have to die." He drew in a ragged breath. "And yet...we _didn't _die, and I'm not sure _why_ we didn't. I might have survived the destruction of the satellite, even re-entry and free-fall to Earth--I'm not human anymore, and I can take a _lot_ of punishment--but the others..." He shook his head. "I haven't been able to even think about it yet."  
  
She shook her head. "I don't _care_ how you all survived. It makes no difference. You're here, that's what matters."  
  
"Is it?" Joe scowled. "Rafael's dead--if I finally break down for good, there's no way to fix me. Even if everything keeps working like it should...I'm not the man you fell in love with, Miya. My feelings for you haven't changed--they never have, and they never will--but my body has changed almost beyond recognition." He finally looked down, steeling himself. "I--I'll understand if you don't want to--if you don't want me."  
  
She put her hand on his chest. "Don't say such stupid things. I've never stopped wanting you. Not for a moment."  
  
"That was before you knew--"  
  
"Joe--_shizuka na_." Miya laid two fingers on his lips, stilling them. He met her eyes again, and she leaned closer. "I've listened to you, now you be quiet and listen to me. I don't care how you survived, I don't care if you're a cyborg, I don't care if there's nothing under that battle-scarred Sicilian hide of yours but wires and circuits and gears and pulleys, I don't care if you've got a working CD burner in your ass. I told you--nothing has changed. Nothing ever will." Miya blinked, hard, her eyes beginning to well up. Now it was perfectly clear why he'd never tried to find her, why he'd never come to her--because he didn't feel worthy of her anymore. What a complete idiot he was. She would have accepted him crippled, blind, deaf, dumb, without arms, without legs, lobotomized, castrated--didn't he realize that her love for him was as unconditional as it was absolute? That on the one occasion she had chosen to give her heart to a man, it was without conditions or reservations? Had she really been that hard to decipher, even to the one man who could always see right through her?  
  
She opened her mouth to explain all this to him, but before she could utter a word, Joe pulled her to him with his old rough gentleness and covered her mouth with his own. His arms went around her--harder, a bit more muscular than she remembered, but still warm and solid and _real_--and she was hit with a wave of sudden desire so intense it literally took her breath away.   
  
Joe sensed the change in her, and responded to it...but at last he forced himself away from the deepening kiss long enough to whisper one last confession in a harsh, voiceless rasp. "I...I don't know...if I can..."  
  
"We'll work on it," Miya responded, and pushed him down on his back in the front seat.  
  
And he could. And they did.  
  


  
* * * 

Jun drew in a sudden, sharp breath, and her green eyes flew open wide. "Ken--!"  
  
A warm hand closed over hers. "Here. It's all right, we're safe."  
  
She sat up, looking around at the room that was only just beginning to flood with the light of early morning. "Ken...where are we?"  
  
"Miya's house."  
  
"How--?"  
  
"We haven't quite figured that one out yet, but she told me she found us outside last night, unconscious, and..." He trailed off.  
  
That was when Jun realized she wasn't wearing anything--not her BirdStyle, not her civilian clothes, nothing. She was sitting up on a pallet on the floor, and her entire upper body was bared to Ken's eyes. She hastily grabbed the sheet that had pooled at her waist and pulled it up over her breasts, feeling the warm flush of blood rushing to her cheeks. "La...last night...?" she stammered, struggling to regain her composure.  
  
Ken, for his part, fought to keep a smile from spreading across his face. She was so--so _cute_ when she blushed, though she wouldn't have appreciated the observation. "You've been out for hours. Joe and I woke up some time ago--he went with Miya into town to let Saburo know we're safe."  
  
Jun instantly forgot about her loss of modesty. "Joe? How is he? He was shot--"  
  
"I know...but he's healed."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"It's true, I saw for myself. It's like he was never hurt at all. Don't ask me to explain because I can't. I don't even know why we're all still alive."  
  
A soft grunt cut off Jun's response to Ken's statement. She knelt up, wrapping the sheet demurely around herself, and scooted on her knees over to the next pallet. Sitting on her heels, she reached out to touch a tousle of mouse-brown hair. "Jinpei..."  
  
Another noise, almost a groan this time; then: "_Demo, oneechan_...just a few more minutes..."  
  
"Jinpei, wake up." Gentle, but insistent. "Come on."  
  
The youth stirred, yawned hugely, and opened his wide brown eyes. "Sis? Why're you wearing a sheet?"  
  
Ken chuckled. "I can see what Miya meant about not wanting to explain the situation five times over."  
  
"_Aniki!_!" Jinpei sat up and looked around. "Hey, what the heck?!" He blinked. "Oh, hell--the satellite...Egobossler...aw, man, what the hell happened?!"  
  
"Would you keep it down, kid?" rumbled a drowsy baritone from the large lump against the wall. "Some of us are busy being unconscious."  
  
Ken grinned and winked at Jun. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Ryu."  
  
The big man sat up, rubbing at his eyes. "Whew...what a ride. Everybody make it out okay?"  
  
"Yeah," Jinpei said, "how _did_ we get off that hunk of space junk anyway?"  
  
Jun looked at Ken expectantly, wondering the same thing but not bothering to put her question into so many words.  
  
Ken sighed. Once again, everyone was looking at him for answers, and for once he didn't have any. Not even the beginnings of one. What shreds of facts he knew were too incredible to be believed.  
  
"The important thing to remember," he said at last, "is that we all made it out okay. Even Joe--he went with Miya into town."  
  
"Miya?" Ryu echoed.  
  
"I thought you weren't speaking to her anymore," Jinpei said. "You said she was a cold-hearted selfish inconsiderate bitch."  
  
"Jinpei!" Jun chided.  
  
Ken chuckled again. "I was upset with her for a long time, yes. It does seem significant, though, that we ended up on her doorstep, of all places." _And come to think of it, I wasn't even entirely sure where this place was. Jun knew, but I never asked her for details..._ That was significant somehow, but he couldn't quite figure out why. He filed the question away for future consideration and continued. "According to Miya, she found us outside last night, alive but unconscious--and stark naked."  
  
"Eww," Jinpei responded, his nose wrinkling with distaste. "So how come _you're_ dressed, _aniki_?"  
  
"I crammed myself into a pair of Miya's sweatpants. She went into town to get clothes for the rest of you, and Joe went with her to contact Chief Kamo to let him know we're all right."  
  
Jinpei got up, wrapping part of the sheet around his narrow body, trailing the rest behind him like a long tail. "I wonder if there's anything to eat around here."  
  
"Food, now there's a concept," Ryu said, hauling himself up and folding the sheet neatly around his lower body in a makeshift sumo's loincloth. "I'll help you look."  
  
"Boys, don't you think that's a bit rude--poking around in someone's kitchen when they're not here?" Jun folded her arms, scowling a bit.  
  
"Ah, Miya won't care. Will she, Ken?" Ryu prompted.  
  
"Of course she won't. You two go ahead."  
  
"Why do I get the feeling you wanted them out of the room?" Jun asked quietly once she and Ken were alone.  
  
"Because you know me too damned well. You always did, even when I didn't know myself." Ken hesitated a moment, then reached out and took Jun's hand firmly in his. "There's a lot we haven't had a chance to get settled between us. I know now isn't the time--but I don't care." He looked into her lovely sea-green eyes. "If I don't say it right now, I might not ever get the words out."  
  
"Ken--"  
  
"Jun...we almost died last night--and the last thing I could think of, the last thought I had, was that I'd never have the chance to tell you what I should have told you years ago. I dedicated myself to duty--to what Joe always called our 'Noble Cause', capital letters and all--because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. I tried not to feel anything but friendship towards you because I didn't want to do to you what my father did to my mother. I wanted you to have the chance to find a normal man, someone with whom you could have that normal life I know you've always craved.  
  
"These past few months, though...I think I finally came to realize what a precious thing love is--how rare it really is. It would be different if I didn't have these feelings for you...but I do. We were just starting to explore them when the world caved in on us."  
  
"I know, Ken."  
  
"I feel like we've been given a second chance...I don't want to waste it. Even if we have to go fight a new menace tomorrow--even this afternoon, or an hour from right now--I want us to have whatever we can, while we can. However much it hurts to lose someone you love...it would hurt a hundred times worse to lose someone you _should_ have loved, and didn't."  
  
Jun blinked hard. "Ken..." She threw her arms around him, pressing her face to his bare shoulder, too overcome for words. Ken held her close, letting her cry, rubbing his cheek against her soft, fragrant hair.   
  
Words sprang unbidden to his mind, words he'd read somewhere, long ago: _So this is love, as demanding and nourishing and difficult as it can be, and as strong and wise as it makes you become. There is something to be gained from commitment. There are rewards for staying when you would rather leave...and so you let love come perch upon your shoulder. And you do not turn it away.  
  
_ Ken shook his head, amused at himself. Here he was poised on the brink of culminating a romance that had budded in his childhood, and the most romantic and fitting words that came to mind were from an old magazine advertisement for sneakers. A soft chuckle rumbled in his chest.  
  
"...what...?" Jun sniffed.  
  
"Nothing. I'll tell you later." Ken kissed the top of her head and hugged her tightly to him. "Jun?"  
  
"Mm?"  
  
Ken smiled, hoping she wouldn't take his question improperly.  
  
"Do you know how to tango?"  
  


  
* * *   
  
Return to the Fanfiction Archive  
  



	2. Everyone Wanted Something

PAST THE MISSION

_Emby Quinn (embyquinn@subreality.com)_

Part 2

  
_She said, 'They all think they know him well  
But I knew him better  
Everyone wanted something from him  
I did too, but I shut my mouth  
And he just gave me a smile'  
  
_--Tori Amos  
  
The Land Rover rumbled into Montanville shortly after eight o'clock. The shops in the middle of town were just opening their doors, but there weren't many people out--most of the inhabitants had evacuated the night before and were just now returning home after a long, sleepless night in emergency shelters, waiting for the end of the world. Thankfully, it hadn't come.  
  
The Rover pulled into a parking space that was really too narrow for its bulk, but since there were no other cars nearby, it didn't really matter.   
  
Joe emerged from the driver's side and stretched his long legs. The sunlight felt good on his face; he hadn't expected to see another morning, and this one was unquestionably beautiful. There was a definite nip of early chill in the air, but the sky was high and blue and absolutely cloudless.  
  
After a moment, Miya stepped out of the Rover and locked her door before closing it. "Well, at least we didn't have to sit here and wait for the stores to open," she smiled.  
  
Joe chuckled in the back of his throat. "Being...sidetracked by car-play...can have its adtages." He met her at the front of the car and caught her hand, looked earnestly into her sky-colored eyes. "You be careful," he said, not wanting to let her out of his sight but knowing it would be ridiculous to trail her every step.  
  
Miya gave him a significant look. "I'll try to survive the screaming hordes," she said, waving her free hand at the empty streets. "There's a phone stall by the drug store."  
  
"Seen it." He let go of her hand and watched her walk off, her hair catching the fire in the morning sunlight and glowing with it, finespun copper set aflame. When she disappeared into the clothing store, he headed for the pay phone, searching his memory for the direct line access number to Gatchaman Central.  
  


  
* * * 

G-Mountain's base was eerily quiet all morning despite the rush of activity to determine the status of the Galactor Syndicate, now that its leader and most of his faithful had perished. Parts of the base were still being repaired from the devastating attack in which Dr. Nambu had been lost, and the somber air of the base had turned positively grim in the past hours. The status of the Science Ninja Team was officially "missing", but everyone knew that the Ninja, the heart and soul of their security operation, were very probably dead.  
  
Stacks of reports sat on the Chief Engineer's desk, most of them containing details of arrests and surrenders of the stragglers who were all that was left of the once-mighty Syndicate. It was nearly ten o'clock, and Kamo knew he should be working...but he couldn't concentrate. He'd never been effective as a paper-pusher; he'd always been a hands-on type of fellow, and at the moment he didn't have the heart to even make the attempt at paperwork. He sat in his office, staring at the small model of the GatchaSpartan on his desk.   
  
He couldn't believe they were gone. He'd said that Gatchaman was immortal...and he wished he could truly believe it, deep down in his soul. It wasn't possible, though. No one could have survived the destruction of the massive orbiter that had housed Sosai Z's essence.   
  
So why was he sitting here as though he were waiting? Waiting for...what?  
  
_*ringringring*  
  
_ Kamo jumped so severely he almost fell out of his chair. It wasn't the regular office phone that was signaling so insistently for his attention. It was the special line, the line used only in emergencies, when the activators weren't functional--the line that only six people knew existed, including himself, and--  
  
_*ringringring*  
  
_ He snatched the receiver out of the cradle so fast he almost disconnected the phone from the wall. "Kamo!" he shouted. He wondered if his heart had actually stopped beating, or was it just that he'd forgotten how to breathe?  
  
Silence for a moment, just long enough for him to think it was some kind of malfunction, a glitch in the phone system, a loose wire somewhere, a ghost in the machine. Then, a low measured voice, deeply-pitched and unmistakable. "Good morning, Chief Kamo."  
  
"Ji...Jyo...JOE!!!" Kamo leapt to his feet, sending his office chair skidding back on its casters to slam against the rear wall of his office. "What--where--how--when--_is everyone all right??_"  
  
Joe's low, gravelly chuckle came over the line. "Everyone's fine. As for where we are, it's a pretty little place up in the mountains, a few klicks outside of Montanville. The road's a bit of a long drive, but if you give us time to rest up and get our bearings, we can be back at the base tonight--if you don't mind us bringing a tagalong. You've never met Ken's sister, have you?"  
  
"I didn't know he had one." Kamo's head was spinning. Ken, Joe, all of them, _alive_. It was so surreal--joyous, no question of that, but at the same time...so incredible.  
  
"Mmn. Not surprising. Let's say they had a family dispute that's recently been resolved. Anyway, I think you'll like her. Her name's Miya." He pronounced it almost as if it were a possessive pronoun in his native Sicilian: _mia_.  
  
"But, Joe--I mean, it's _wonderful_ to hear from you, I'm glad everyone's all right, but--_how?!_ We saw the Galactor base destroyed, there's been no sign of the Spartan, we were certain you were all dead--"  
  
"I know, there are a lot of questions to ask, Chief, but we don't have all the answers yet. We'll be there, I promise. Just give us all a chance to get our heads together first, hm?"  
  
"It won't be any trouble to send an air transport to pick you all up--"  
  
"And where will a transport land in the mountains, Chief?" Another dry chuckle. "Just relax. We're not going to vanish off the face of the Earth--not after we worked so hard to save it. We'll be there in the morning, that's my promise to you."  
  


  
* * * 

The clerk at the clothing store knew the tall, lanky redhead on sight--almost everyone in town did. Mina, or Maya, or perhaps Mara? No, that was too much like her own name, Nara decided. Most people simply called her "the Redhead". Nara marveled that such a young, reasonably pretty woman would live by herself in a long-abandoned house in the hills, miles from anywhere. Rumors flew about, as they always did in small towns, but no one dared ask the lady herself, and she was around so seldom, preferring to keep to herself, that she never gave a chance to get to know her well enough to learn any personal information.  
  
This morning the Redhead was smiling--no, in all honesty, she was _beaming_. There was an unmistakable lightness in her step, an inescapable lilt in her voice as she asked for various articles of clothing in a wide range of sizes--far too varied for one or even two people.  
  
"These don't seem to be your usual choices," Nara ventured as she rang up the purchases.  
  
The woman grinned. It made her look much younger than the thirty-odd years of age people assumed she was. "I had family drop in unexpectedly," she confided. "But they, ah, lost their luggage, so I came in to get them some things to change into."  
  
Nara could hardly keep from giggling with suppressed glee--the mystery woman _did_ have a family! "It's very late in the year to be travelling," she said, a seemingly innocent remark baited to fish out more information while the Redhead was being so forthcoming.  
  
"I wasn't exactly expecting them," was the answer. "Still, I'm glad to see them." She looked outside, and Nara followed her eyes. A stranger, a tall, lean man in a black T-shirt and tight faded jeans, stood at a phone booth.   
  
"One of your family?" Nara asked in what she hoped was a casual tone. A ridiculous question, she knew. There was no resemblance whatsoever between the two--the man's hair was either dark blond or a very light brown, with the slightest hint of red in the sunlight, but that was where any hint of similarity ended.  
  
"Not yet." The Redhead tipped a saucy wink at Nara as she handed over a handful of bills. "Thanks for your help."  
  
"Bring them down to visit before they leave!" Nara called, but got no answer as the Redhead walked out. Nara rushed to the window and watched as she went to the large white road vehicle she always drove and loaded her purchases in the back. The young man hung up the phone and walked over to help her. Nara squealed into her hands when the man caught the Redhead's chin in one hand and planted a no-nonsense kiss on her mouth--on the street, in broad daylight, where anyone could see! The Redhead swatted at him playfully, and they got into the car--the man was driving--and pulled out onto the road.  
  
Nara ran to the telephone to call her best friend Jane at the credit company. She had to tell someone what she'd seen before she burst with excitement.  
  


  
* * * 

Ken insisted that they get started back to Gatchaman Center as quickly as possible. No one discussed whether or not Miya would accompany them--it was taken as a given that she would by all concerned. She locked up her house and this time handed the car keys to Ken. He and Jun occupied the front seat, while Joe and Miya sat behind them. Jinpei and Ryu were relegated to the rear of the Rover, and before they'd even reached the highway the two of them were fast asleep, Ryu snoring loudly.  
  
Miya explained to those still awake how the Firebird had appeared out of a clear sky and landed beside her house, and how she'd gotten them all inside. Ken listened carefully to her story, never taking his eyes off the treacherous road ahead. When she'd stopped speaking, he said, quite clearly, "There's something you're not telling us."  
  
No response, which meant of course that he was right.  
  
Jun looked from brother to sister, a small crease of worry furrowing her high white brow. "What...?"  
  
Ken glanced at his sister's calm, composed face reflected in the rear view mirror. "What were you doing outside at the edge of a cliff in the middle of the night? I doubt you were stargazing."  
  
Miya's reflection met his eyes, in that direct and relentless stare of hers. "I was dead-ass drunk and contemplating suicide. More or less in that order."  
  
"Miya!!" Jun turned around in her seat. "You wouldn't have...?"  
  
"To be honest, I don't know if I could have gone through with it." The redhead shrugged. "I only know that I wanted to. Everyone I knew and loved was dead--or so I thought. I had nothing left to live for."  
  
"That's an incredibly lame reason to kill yourself," Joe pronounced darkly. "If any of us had thought that way, we wouldn't be here now."  
  
"I know." Miya accepted Joe's rebuke without flinching. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now...I wasn't thinking straight, I was ready to take the coward's way out, and that's not something I'm exactly proud of. That's why I didn't mention it before." She looked at Ken's face in the mirror again. "I just got my little brother and my friends back, I didn't want you to be--to be ashamed of me."  
  
Ken's eyes flickered between her and the road. The silence spun out around them as the broken white line in the center of the road seemed to mark the passing seconds.  
  
"Ken...:" Jun prompted softly when she could bear it no longer.  
  
Finally Ken spoke. "Promise you won't be so stupid anymore and you're forgiven."  
  
Relieved, Miya smiled and nodded. "Done."  
  
"And Joe? You have my permission to either punch her or spank her. I'd do it, but she can kick my ass."  
  
"Only because you go too easy on me," Miya countered.  
  
Joe smirked. "I gave up punching my girlfriend for Lent. And if I spanked her, she'd only enjoy it."  
  
"_You!!_" Miya slapped Joe's shoulder, and Ken grinned, while Jun giggled, glad that the lingering tension was finally gone.  
  


  
* * * 

The secret base was housed within a mountain range in the south. "Funny how we both ran for the hills," Ken remarked, trying to make a joke of it, and his sister nodded.  
  
The Land Rover stopped at the security checkpoint, and a stocky young man in the familiar "G" coveralls came out of the guard shack to greet them.  
  
"Security's tighter than I remember," Miya murmured to Joe.  
  
"Lots of things changed after...after President Anderson was killed," he whispered back. "And it only got worse from there."  
  
She sighed and squeezed his hand.  
  
"I don't have my identification with me," Ken explained to the sentry. "If you call Chief Kamo, he can verify my identity for you."  
  
The sentry scowled. "Dr. Kamo is very busy at the moment. I'm afraid you'll have to come back when you have your clearances ready."  
  
Ken blinked. "Excuse me? I'm G-1, the Eagle. My teammates and I don't need special clearances."  
  
"The Science Ninja Team perished last night. Besides, there were only five of them," the guard added, peering into the vehicle, "not six."  
  
"If you would just call Chief Kamo--it won't take a moment--he can clear this up for you." There was a definite edge to Ken's voice now.  
  
"As if I had time to bother Dr. Kamo for verification of every nut-case crackpot who comes up here." The sentry stepped back and waved a hand dismissively. "Get lost."  
  
Ken snarled and shoved the door open. "You want verification?"  
  
The sentry jumped back and drew his gun. He was shaking, but Ken didn't care.  
  
"Here's your bloody verification! BIRD GO!!!!" Ken raised his left forearm and brought it viciously down in front of his face. A blinding flash of light, and when it faded, Ken Washio was gone.  
  
In his place stood Eagle Ken, Gatchaman, leader of the Science Ninja Team.  
  
The sentry's jaw dropped. "Guh--_Gatchaman?!_"  
  
"You were expecting the Avon Lady?" Ken fumed, his eyes wide and blazing underneath his visor. "Now either use that gun or put it away. We don't have time for any more of this foolishness."  
  
The sentry blinked. "Sorry, sir--I was only doing my job, sir--" He missed the holster twice before finally putting the gun safely away. He jumped back into the guard shack as if seeking protection from the angry man in BirdStyle and triggered the gate open. "Go right in, sir."  
  
Ken didn't bother to change back in case they met with anymore overzealous greenhorns. He got back behind the steering wheel and almost floored the accelerator speeding past the guard shack into the complex.  
  
He became aware that Jun was looking at him strangely. He dragged his temper back down and sat on it. "I know, I know, he was only doing what he was supposed to do, but he was still pissing me off. He's lucky I didn't deck him."  
  
Jun shook her head. "Ken..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're not wearing your bracelet."  
  
"........" Ken looked at his left wrist, where his activator was--or should have been. It wasn't.  
  
"None of us are," Jun continued quietly. "So how did you go BirdStyle?"  
  
Ken slammed on the brakes, waking the sleepers in the back and making everyone grab for support. "_Kuso_..."  
  
"What? What?" Jinpei groused. "_Aniki_, what happened?"  
  
"Hush, Jinpei," Jun told him. She didn't take her eyes off Ken.  
  
"I...I don't understand," Ken faltered. "I didn't even think about it--I was so angry...I just did it. But how...?"  
  
"Let's find out," Joe said from behind him. "Bird GO!"  
  
_Flash.  
  
_ "Well, that answers _that_ question," Miya said mildly, looking at the Condor in BirdStyle who now sat beside her. "I thought you needed your bracelets for that."  
  
"We do," Jun protested. "It's just not possible--"  
  
Two more flashes from the rear of the Rover. "Well, it worked for us too," Jinpei announced, leaning forward and bumping Miya in the back of the head with his Swallow visor.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Jun was almost afraid to try it herself, but it would be better to find out now than later, and besides, she felt silly sitting here in civvies with the rest of the team in BirdStyle. "Bird GO!"  
  
_Flash.  
  
_ "Neat trick," Miya said. "I wonder if I should try it."  
  
"Don't," Joe cautioned. "I think your little brother has about reached his weirdness tolerance level for the day."  
  
"Just as well. I'd probably turn into a crane or something anyway."  
  
Ken said nothing. He was still trying to grasp the fact that he was in BirdStyle without his bracelet. Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell had happened to him--to all of them--up on that satellite.  
  


  
* * * 

Saburo Kamo emerged from his office at a brisk trot despite his ample girth. The first thing he did was envelop Ken in a fatherly embrace. "It's true, you're all safe," he said, achingly close to tears. "Thank God."  
  
Joe smiled and patted Kamo on the back. "We're pretty happy about it ourselves."  
  
Then it was Joe's turn to get hugged all but breathless. "I never could have forgiven myself if any of you had been hurt...or worse," Kamo confessed. He embraced the others one after the other, and almost took hold of the tall redhead standing beside Joe as well, but stopped himself just in time. "Oh! Pardon me, uhm, I don't believe we've met?"  
  
Ken chuckled. "Chief Kamo, my sister, Miyae."  
  
"Oh, yes, of course, Joe told me about you on the phone--I'm so pleased to meet you!" Kamo shook Miya's hand warmly. "Please, make yourself comfortable in my office...I need to borrow the team for debriefing, but it shouldn't take too long."  
  
Miya smiled. "I understand."  
  
Kamo escorted her into his private office, then returned and led the team to the briefing room. As soon as the door closed behind him, he grew serious. "Tell me everything that happened," he said. "We were monitoring, but the information was...confusing, to say the least."  
  
Quietly, and in as much detail as he could, Ken related the story of what had happened on the satellite: the battle to get inside, finding Egobossler impaled on his own sword, the final confrontation with Sosai Z. When he got to the part about the whole team being taken down, his words became less assured, more halting, but he continued, explaining as best he could.  
  
"I could barely keep my eyes open...the others looked unconscious, or dead. I was sure we were all finished." Ken's voice was so low now Kamo and the others had to strain to hear him. "Then I saw...I saw the Doctor...Doctor Nambu. Or his spirit, I guess. I must have been so close to death it didn't matter. I wasn't surprised to see him, really. I thought he was there to take me to wherever it was we go after death. But he told me that I couldn't die--that I...all of us...were the immortal Phoenix. Then he was gone, and I..." He closed his eyes. "I don't remember much after that."  
  
"We saw the Firebird emerge from Z's satellite," Kamo prompted. "Then it disappeared from our sensors."  
  
"Miya says she saw the Firebird in the sky when she--when she went outside. When it landed, she found us all alive, but unconscious."  
  
"And naked," Joe added with a smirk.  
  
Ken ignored him. "Miya got us clothes and let us use her car to get here. And now you know everything we do."  
  
"What about your vehicles?" Kamo asked. "The Spartan?"  
  
"I don't know, Chief Kamo. I remember the vehicles assembling, and this bright light as the Spartan formed..." Ken rubbed his forehead with a weary sigh. "But I don't remember anything after that. There was no sign of the ship or our separate vehicles where we landed. Like Joe said, we didn't even have our clothes."  
  
"Or our bracelets," Jun reminded him quietly.  
  
"You didn't have your activators? Where did you find them?" Kamo asked, curious.  
  
Ken sighed. "We didn't."  
  
Kamo blinked. "But...you're in BirdStyle...?"  
  
"The watchman on duty didn't want to let us in without identification, and he wouldn't call you to verify. So I decided to show him who I was the quick way." Ken shrugged. "I forgot I didn't have my bracelet on...but I transformed anyway. We all did. And we have no idea how we did it."  
  
"Incredible..." Kamo shook his head, pondering, his brown eyes darting from one to another, studying each of them in turn. "Have you tried transforming back?"  
  
Ken shrugged. "It couldn't hurt. _Bird Go!_" He raised his left arm again, just as though he still wore his BirdStyle activator--and with a flash of light, he stood once more in the open-necked shirt and jeans he'd worn earlier.  
  
"_Masaka..._ As the other team members deactivated their BirdStyles, Kamo's wide brow furrowed in thought. "Well," he said after they were done, "I think the next logical step is to have each of you examined by the staff physician--particularly you, Ken."  
  
"Chief--"  
  
"You look reasonably healthy at the moment, Ken--" Better than he had in weeks, certainly better than he'd been since Nambu's death, Kamo thought-- "but I don't believe in taking chances with the lives of people who are so important to our operation." _Particularly_, Kamo added silently, _when they're supposed to be dead_.  
  
He checked his wristwatch. "It's a bit late to get started now. Why don't you all get some rest and I'll let the doctor know to get started first thing in the morning."  
  
Kamo led the team back to his office and opened the door. "Miss Washio, if you'd like, you can return home; or you can wait here until--" He stopped.  
  
"What is it, Chief?" Ken asked, peering over Kamo's shoulder.  
  
"Shhh."  
  
Miya sat slumped in a chair. She was fast asleep.  
  
"Poor thing, she's worn out," Jun whispered. "Small wonder; I thought she looked awfully tired."  
  
"She didn't sleep last night, that's for sure," Ken replied, just as quietly. "That's what I gathered from what she told me, anyway."  
  
"I'll arrange for a room to be made ready for her," Kamo murmured.  
  
"Don't bother." Joe made his way past the others, bent down and scooped the sleeping woman up in his arms. She made a drowsy little sound, and Joe shushed her. He turned, cradling her, and walked out towards his quarters without another word.  
  


  
* * * 

The next morning, Ken reported as ordered to the infirmary. The doctor who examined Ken was new--at least he hadn't seen her before. She was close to forty, with a wide smile and analytical eyes and a matronly body and a silver nosering and an abundance of salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a tight French braid. She introduced herself as Shuko Kamimura, and set at once to examining him with a directness that was both refreshing and a bit unsettling.  
  
Ken was nervous about submitting to the exam, though in truth he felt better than he had in a long time. He didn't feel so tired, or so unsteady on his feet--in fact, he felt fantastic.  
  
It took longer than he expected; Kamimura seemed determined to run every test twice, and once she was finished with that she spent an inordinately long amount of time doing things at her computer terminal. She didn't tell Ken why she was being so meticulously picky, and he didn't dare ask.  
  
Dr. Kamimura was reading from Ken's chart, casting him suspicious little glances from time to time, as he dressed. "Strange..."  
  
"What is it, Doctor?"  
  
"You _are_ Ken Washio, right?"  
  
He pondered the question. "I was the last time I bothered to check."  
  
"Hn. Well, the blood type and the physical description match, so I guess I haven't gone crazy." Kamimura scowled. "I wonder if some of the files got crossed by accident. Have you been suffering any ill effects recently?"  
  
"I was," Ken confessed. There was no point in lying to the doctor--all the details of his illness were right there in front of her. "I'm not feeling ill at the moment, though."  
  
"You shouldn't be. You're in perfect health."  
  
"For a man who's dying of cancer, you mean."  
  
Kamimura turned to face him. "No, you don't understand. You're not sick. There's no sign of any debilitating illness in your body at all. Every test I've run has come back negative. You're clean."  
  
Ken froze in the act of pulling on his sweater. His face lit up. "You mean..." He almost didn't dare say it aloud. "You mean my cancer's in remission?"  
  
"I mean," Kamimura said, her dark and piercing eyes slightly troubled, "that there _is_ no cancer. There's no sign that there ever was."  
  
Ken stared at her. "That's impossible."  
  
"That's what I thought, so I ran a complete system diagnostic, and everything's working fine."  
  
So that was why she ran every test on him twice. "So...I'm not going to die?"  
  
"Sure you're going to die, maybe in about eighty years or so, if you don't jump in front of a bus before then."  
  
Ken sat down hard on the exam table, absorbing all this with a blankly stunned expression. "But how...? I was sick--I was _dying_...it wasn't just that I'd been told that, I could _feel_ it...how could all that just...go away?"  
  
Kamimura sighed and signed the release form, tucking the stylus pen absently behind her left ear when she was done. "The human body is a remarkable thing. Given half a chance, it has a remarkable capacity to heal itself that defies all attempts to explain completely away. Medical miracles really _do_ happen, though they're rarely as radical as this." She smiled at him. "My advice is not to question it too deeply--just thank God for it."  
  
"I do, believe me. And thank you, Doctor."  
  
"Now get your disgustingly healthy butt out of here so I can take a look at the rest of your team, willya?" She tipped him a wink as he chuckled, her mischievous grin fading when he was safely gone.   
  
Her predecessor hadn't been an incompetent--all the information on Ken Washio was right there in his file. Advanced multi-systemic malignancy induced by hard radiation exposure. Inoperable. Irreversible. The treatments had slowed the progress of the cancer, but not stopped it, and even those had eventually failed. Ken Washio had, at the time of his last medical examination, less than a month to live. And that report was dated two days ago.  
  
One of the primary reasons Shuko Kamimura had been called in was because of her experience in cancer research and biogenetics. She'd known before she'd finished looking over Ken Washio's file completely that the man was doomed.  
  
And he'd just walked out of her office with a clean--_flawless--_bill of health.  
  
Impossible. But there it was.  
  
Kamimura shook her head and closed Ken's file. She called the girl in; she'd take a look at Jun next, then the others each in turn. She'd save the cyborg for last; his examination would take longer than all the others put together, particularly since her hands-on experience with cybernetic augmentation was rudimentary at best. Still, at the moment she was the most qualified physician on the base, and she'd have to do her best.  
  


  
* * * 

"Wake up, sleepyhead."  
  
"Mm...?" Miya opened her eyes to a flat gray unfamiliar ceiling. "Where...?"  
  
"You fell asleep in Kamo's office," Joe said, sitting on the edge of the bed . "I didn't think you'd mind spending the night in my quarters."  
  
She sat up. "What time is it?"  
  
"Almost noon."  
  
"_Nani?!_ You let me sleep for--" A quick mental calculation. "_Fourteen hours?_"  
  
Joe smirked, unperturbed. "If you slept that long, you needed it."  
  
A soft knock, and the door opened. Ryu stuck his tousled head in. "Joe, the doc's ready for you. Hi, Miya."  
  
Joe grumbled and snagged his shirt.   
  
Miya yawned hugely and waved in mid-stretch. "Morning--sort of."  
  
"The rest of us are done; we're goin' down to get some lunch. Wanna come along, Mi?"  
  
"Sure." Miya got up and looked around for her jeans--she'd been put to bed in her shirt and underwear. She found them draped over a chair and climbed into them, then hunted down her shoes.  
  
Ryu grinned at Joe. "Don't worry, the new doc's a cool lady. She won't bite 'less you ask her nice."  
  
"That's no fun." Joe planted a kiss on Miya's lips. "Save me some coffee, will you? This is probably going to take a while."  
  


  
* * * 

"Well, whatever's happened to us, it hasn't affected your appetite," Jinpei said as he watched Ryu finish his third plateful of food.  
  
"The doctor told us we're all in excellent health," Jun said, sipping from a glass of pink grapefruit juice. "That's good enough for me."  
  
Ken took another mouthful of rice and didn't say anything. He could feel Jun's eyes on him, and he knew she was no less amazed than he was by the "medical miracle" which had restored his health. _My whole body was riddled with disease. I knew it, Hakase knew it, the medical team here knew it. I could almost feel my insides rotting. I didn't care, so long as they held together long enough for me to finish Galactor once and for all.  
  
Well, they're finished now--and here I am. Perfect health, Dr. Kamimura said._  
  
He heard Nambu speak inside his head again: _You can never die. You are all immortal, like the Phoenix._  
  
_Dear God. Maybe we really _did_ die up there._  
  
"Joe?"  
  
Everyone looked up at Miyae's exclamation. Joe stormed through the doorway, past the table without looking at any of them, and slammed out into the open corridor without so much as a pause or a look back.  
  
"Uh-oh." Jun started to get up, but Miyae was already out of her chair and out the door after him.   
  
"_Now_ what?" Jinpei all but wailed.   
  
"Damn," Ryu sighed. "Just when I thought things were gonna be okay."  
  
Ken and Jun exchanged worried glances.  
  


  
* * * 

If Joe noticed Miya was following him--and he must have done--he chose not to acknowledge her presence. He walked the maze of corridors for long, grimly silent minutes, and anyone meeting him in passing took one look at the expression on his face and hurried to move out of his way without attempting any courtesies.  
  
Finally Joe turned sharply left into a large set of double doors. Miya scurried to follow and found herself in a sort of indoor garden--an arboretum, really--full of green trees and flowering shrubs and scattered fountains carefully crafted to look like natural formations in the unnatural setting of the base's interior.  
  
Joe sat down beside one of the fountains, his arms folded forbiddingly across his hard chest, and shut his eyes, his head bowed, his chiseled face set in an introspective scowl. Miya perched lightly on a convenient stone a meter or so away from him, rested her elbows on her knees, watched him, and waited.  
  
Joe was taking slow, deep breaths in an obvious effort to master his temper. Miya had seen this often enough and was secretly gratified to know that some things never changed. What she didn't realize was that Joe's infamous ill temper had shown itself only rarely in the years since his return from the missing-and-presumed-dead.  
  
Finally he opened his eyes, and they focused at once on her as though just noticing that she was there.  
  
"What?" Miya asked quietly.  
  
Joe looked away without speaking.  
  
Miya sighed, but held her tongue. She had tried, once, to push Joe into telling her something he didn't want to reveal. He'd reacted by walking out on her and not returning except once, to say goodbye before leaving for Cross Karacolm to die. She wasn't going to drive him off again. So she waited for him to tell her.  
  
"That damned doctor's a quack," he said at last.  
  
Miya blinked. "Oh?"  
  
"Either that, or she's crazy. Or a liar. Or her equipment's screwed."  
  
Miya's heart beat a little faster. "What's wrong?"  
  
Joe looked at her.  
  
"Oh, gods...you're not...?"  
  
"I'm not what?"  
  
"You're not--" _Broken,_ she was going to say, and bit it back hard. "Sick? Hurt? Da-damaged, in some way?"  
  
He laughed, a bitter bark with no humor. "I'm in perfect health."  
  
She relaxed a little. "So...everything's working okay."  
  
His eyes narrowed at her slightly.  
  
Miya flushed. "I mean--your...augmentations. They're not...malfunctioning, or anything."  
  
His jaw twitched dangerously.  
  
She swallowed hard. "Are they?"  
  


  
* * * 

"_What?!_" Kamo stood up, slamming his hands on the desk hard enough to make Kamimura jump in her chair. "What did you say?"  
  
The doctor took a deep, calming breath before speaking. "Joe Asakura is human. Completely, fully, utterly and undeniably human. No sign of any cybernetics whatsoever. His bone and muscle mass are a lot denser than I would expect in a man of his age and build--he weighs half again what he should--but there's nothing there he wasn't born with aside from a few old scars. He's completely flesh, blood, and bone--with a healthy dose of attitude." This last was added with a slight edge.  
  
"That's not possible," Kamo said, shaking his head as he sat back down. "Joe's body was ravaged years ago--his brain, his heart, his motor functions were all driven by Dr. Rafael's cybernetic enhancements. He couldn't survive without them. If they were gone, he'd be dead."  
  
"Well, he's very much alive, and he all but called me an ignorant slut before he blew out of my office breathing fire and smoke."  
  
"I'm sure he found your findings...unsettling." Kamo didn't have to mention that he did as well.  
  
"I can let you check my report, and if you want to call in another doctor--a specialist--I'm sure it could be arranged." Kamimura's words were respectful, but her tone was tinged with frost. "I wouldn't expect you to take my word on the matter as gospel."  
  
Kamo gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "I'm not doubting your abilities in the least, Dr. Kamimura--you came quite highly recommended. No, it's simply difficult to grasp. For Joe most particularly, I'm sure."  
  
"I don't pretend to understand how it could have happened," Kamimura said, forcing herself to remain calm and polite. After all, the man had a right to be surprised, even incredulous...no more than she was herself. "Any more than I can explain how Washio's terminal illness simply vanished without leaving the slightest trace, not so much as a malformed cell, to show it ever existed."  
  
Kamo sat back and folded his hands on his generous belly, his pleasant face furrowing as he thought. "And you say the other members of the team are healthy?"  
  
"Completely. No remarkable changes from their last examinations, each of which took place no more than a month ago."  
  
Kamo looked at the model of the lost GatchaSpartan on his desk. He studied its clean, sleek lines, trying to put everything the doctor had told him in perspective with the events of the past forty-eight hours.  
  
The Science Ninja Team had survived the destruction of Sosai Z's satellite. Not only had they returned alive, but all were in excellent--_perfect_--health. And Ken was no longer ill--no longer _dying_. And Joe--Joe was human again.  
  
How would he ever manage to explain all of this to the Council? And what would happen once he made his report? No doubt the team would be isolated, quarantined, examined minutely and repeatedly--for what? Would they be suspected as doubles? Clones? Cleverly-crafted cyborg doppelgangers with internal workings designed to fool the most sophisticated medical equipment? Aliens in human form, perhaps fleshly manifestations of X, or Z, itself? Perhaps something even more sinister?  
  
The war with Galactor was over. The Syndicate was no more. These people--these _children--_should be released from their lifelong obligations, to go seek out the peaceful, private, normal lives so long denied them by trial and circumstance.  
  
"Dr. Kamimura," Kamo said, fixing his brown eyes firmly on her, "I want you to keep your findings absolutely confidential. Discuss them with no one else on staff. Any further developments or findings should be reported directly to me, in person. Put a Level Five security lock on all files concerning the examinations. Prepare a brief--_very_ brief--summary stating that the Science Ninja are in acceptable condition given their respective circumstances and that there is no reason to detain them any further. Understood?"  
  
Kamimura nodded with a slow, conspiratorial smile. She understood very well.  
  


  
* * * 

"...and so, by order of the International Council, Gatchaman Mountain Base will be put on standby status, with a maintenance crew in residence should the need for our branch of the International Science Organization arise again."  
  
Kamo surveyed the five young faces before him--young faces made too old before their time by hardship and trouble.   
  
"And...what about us?" Ken ventured.  
  
"You will each be given a stipend, and of course you may return here whenever you feel the need to do so, until and unless the time comes when the Science Ninja Team must be reactivated. Otherwise, you are all free to do as you like with the rest of your lives."  
  
"All?" Joe asked, arching one eyebrow. Kamo met the Sicilian's eyes; the two hadn't spoken of the miracle that had occurred to make Joe human again, and Kamo had no idea whether Joe had shared that revelation with his teammates--his family--or not. Kamo hadn't mentioned it himself to anyone since Kamimura had told him.   
  
"Since the Syndicate has been defeated, there is no need for you, or Ken, to conceal yourselves any longer. After careful research and consideration, I see no reason for either of you--any of you--not to go out into the world and make your own way. Naturally, you will always have a home here if you need it."  
  
"A normal life..." Jun's voice, soft, almost dreamlike. "It's almost impossible to imagine." Her wide green eyes tracked over to Ken, and Kamo smiled.  
  
"We can all keep in touch, though," Ryu said, looking around anxiously. "Can't we?"  
  
"Of course," Kamo assured him. "I'd encourage that, in fact. You are all each other's family, no one would expect you to simply go your separate ways and never see each other again."  
  
"It doesn't matter what anybody expects," Jinpei said, a note of defiance in his still-somewhat childish voice. "Where Sis goes, I go."  
  
Kamo smiled. "No one would expect any different, young man."  
  


  
* * * 

"Need some help with that, baby brother?" Miya watched Ken struggle a large trunk into the back of the new sleek pewter-toned PT Cruiser.  
  
Ken grunted and shoved hard, and the trunk slid into place. He turned to face his sister with a wide, careless grin. "Thanks anyway."  
  
"You'll write, won't you?"  
  
"Every chance I get. I promise. And you can come visit anytime you like."  
  
"You'll have to come down once the resort is open," Jun said, setting a large hamper in the back seat. "And if you want work, I'm sure there will be a position open for a good piano player and bartender."  
  
Miya laughed. "It sounds tempting--but I hate the cold, remember? Snow makes me break out in a regular rash."  
  
It had been almost a week since Kamo had announced the dissolution of the Science Ninja Team--though it wasn't really dissolution so much as semi-retirement, a setting free, a letting go. Ryu had already returned to his family's small fishing town to spend some time with them before deciding which course his life should take. Jun had decided to open a retreat out in the West, and Ken was going with her.  
  
"Have fun chasing snowbunnies, kid," Miya grinned as Jinpei came out sipping on a Surge drink.  
  
"I'm going to be too busy studying for my college exams," he said. He paused for a moment, looking from Ken to Jun, then finally to Miya. Quickly, unexpectedly, he reached out and hugged her. "G'bye...and thanks," he said, scrambling into the back of the cruiser before she could respond.  
  
Jun smiled. "Don't be a stranger," she said, hugging Miya herself. "Come see us soon, ne?"  
  
"I will,"  
  
"You'll be there for the wedding, at any rate." Jun drew back and smiled, glancing at her left hand for perhaps the twentieth time that day. A small but perfect diamond, set in a white gold ring, glinted on the third finger of her left hand. "Ne?"  
  
"A chance to see my baby brother in a tux? I wouldn't miss that for the world."  
  
Jun laughed. "Since you're going to be my maid of honor, you'd better not!"  
  
"'Bye, Sis," Ken said, enveloping his sister in his arms and holding her for a long moment, resting his cheek against her fiery hair. Then he drew back and searched the eyes as familiar as his own. "Miyae...are you sure you won't come with us? At least for a visit? I don't like the idea of you staying out here all by yourself."  
  
"I'll be fine," Miya said. "And I _will_ come visit you. Before the wedding. Just to annoy the hell out of you."  
  
"We're joining the real world, Sis," Ken said. "Maybe it's time you did, too."  
  
Miya looked at her brother, mirroring his warm smile, but said nothing.  
  
"Come on, we need to get going," Jun said briskly, opening the driver's side door.  
  
"Hey, who said _you _could drive?" Ken protested with a chuckle.  
  
"Don't think I'm going to let _you_ drive, Eagle Scout. We'd never make the plane."  
  
"Oh?" Ken gave Miya's hand a last brotherly squeeze before getting in beside his fiancée. "Are you making a comment on my driving skill?"  
  
"You drive like an old lady when I'm in the car and you know it."  
  
Miya chuckled. "Safe trip, you guys."  
  
Jun waved brightly and started the cruiser. Miya stood and watched the car pull out, waving until it was out of sight. She stood, listening still, until the sound of the engine's echo had finally faded, and the early afternoon was silent once more.  
  
"_...And I've been here, silent all these years..."_ Her voice, so seldom raised in song of late, rang faintly in the crisp mountain air. Seized by a sudden need to feel the smooth keys of her piano under her fingers, to hear the notes spilling out into the perfect stillness, Miya went inside.  
  
She had a battered old upright that she'd found in an antique store down in Montanville. Like the house, she'd restored it herself, tuning it as precisely as she dared, considering its age. She sat down at the piano and began to play, letting the music fill the round, hollow silence that she somehow could no longer tolerate.  
  
"I don't believe I went too far  
I thought I was willing  
She said she knew what my book did not  
I thought she knew what's up  
  
"Past the mission, behind the prison tower  
Past the mission I once knew a hot girl  
Past the mission they're closing every hour  
Past the mission, I smell the roses..."  
  
The sound of a car's engine approaching made her stop playing and singing and listen intently. For a moment she thought Ken was coming back to try and insist that she go with them; he didn't like the idea of her staying up here alone, after all, and even with Jun's quiet insistence, Ken had always been reluctant to let go of an idea once he got it into his head. But no, that wasn't the cruiser's engine--it was too rich, too intense, too powerful, too _loud_--  
  
She sprang up from the bench like a wild horse that had broken its tether and ran outside, her heart pounding madly.  
  
The cool mid-November afternoon was bright, the sky clear, the air still. The sunlight dazzled off the gleaming black Cobra convertible idling in front of her house.  
  
"Nice, isn't it?" Joe said, jumping over the closed door to land outside the car. He wore a black leather jacket over a black tank top and jeans with black leather riding boots. He removed the mirrored sunglasses he'd been wearing and patted the car's sleek curved fender. "It's about time I got a car for my birthday--Ken got a Mazda when he was eighteen."  
  
"Nice," Miya echoed faintly, nodding. "Happy Birthday. That's quite a hunk of rolling iron--I assume it's not just for show."  
  
"I'm thinking of joining the circuit again. I've missed the track a lot--I yearn for the sound of twisted metal and screaming tires," he grinned.  
  
"Sounds great. Do you think it's safe to go public again?"  
  
"Probably not." Joe tugged idly at one of his black leather racing gloves. They were too new to fit properly, but he had plenty of time to break them in now. "I've got a trailer waiting for me in Caldwell. Custom Airstream. Almost like my old one, but it's got a few modifications."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Uh-huh." Without raising his head, he looked up at her, his gaze as direct and piercing as a bullet. "Like a double bed."   
  
Miya heard the invitation in his voice, and for a moment she literally couldn't move. Her feet felt rooted to the ground as her gaze registered every aspect of his appearance--the light brownish hair framing his squarish face, the winter-ice eyes, the full mouth, his whipcord-lean body, his long-fingered hands, his slim but sturdy legs. She drank in his presence, his existence, his _thereness_--the totality of Joe Asakura, his history, his strengths, his wounds, his dreams, his flaws, his desires, his careless facade that masked an intensely passionate nature. He wasn't wearing his "game" face now--he looked at her with unmistakable longing, and she saw plainly that he was offering to open up his whole life and future to make room for her. The questioning tilt of his eyes, the hopeful curve of his mouth, promised everything in his heart to her, if she chose to take it. He was leaving the choice to her, to accept or turn aside as she willed.  
  
He had made himself completely vulnerable, left himself at her mercy, and she could break his heart and his reawakened spirit with a single word: _No._  
  
She found herself released and went running to him, and he caught her up in his arms, spinning her around. He laughed, and his laughter was sweeter than any music she'd ever heard. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him to celebrate the resurrection of hope and the future that lay miraculously restored and whole before them, a future they could spend however they chose, together, at long last.  
  


  
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